The present invention relates generally to decorative lighting products.
Most current lighting products have casings made of polyethylene(POLY) materials, with an optical fiber positioned inside that provides the light. The following is a conventional process for manufacturing a POLY casing for a decorative lighting product. First, a forming die of a predetermined shape with a depression made of silicon and a forming die casing made of white plaster is prepared. This forming die is easily distorted during the preparation process, thus the cost of manufacture is relatively high. Second, a prepared polymer resin liquid, such as polyethylene, is poured into the forming die. The forming die is manually rotated to evenly mix the polyethylene liquid and a solidifying agent, which has been added, allowing the mixture to flow evenly in the forming die until it solidifies to form an optical fiber casing.
This process requires a lot of manual labor and hence the productivity is rather low. In addition, a large working space is also required since the semi-finished fiber casing needs to be finished to produce a colored painted fiber casing. To install optical fibers into the optical fiber casing, holes must be drilled in the fiber casing at certain locations (e.g using an electric drill) so that optical fibers can then be installed using a guiding tube, a guiding plate, a hook, and other tools. This process is complicated and inefficient.
With respect to packaging, since the optical fiber casing made of a polymer resin is hollow and very fragile, it cannot pass a drop test if it is packed with conventional packing materials. Therefore, a special packing material with greater strength, such as styrofoam, needs to be used to make the inner packing case. This material not only leads to an increased cost, but may also have adverse environmental impacts.
The inventor's invention in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/964,951 discloses an optical fiber product with a casing made of polyurethane(PU) material and an optical fiber for lighting which is not fragile and has a considerably simplified production process and improved productivity. However, the optical fiber gave out an insufficient beam, and manual drilling was still necessary. In addition, the working efficiency is not very high since the surfaces of the finished products which are sealed have to be scrapped if the internal chips are damaged and can no longer transmit light.